Dominic Corry: The actors you love to hate

This week sees the release of David Cronenberg's new film A Dangerous Method, starring Keira Knightley. In my anecdotal experience, people, especially women, really seem to hate Keira Knightley.

Hating certain actors isn't a new thing, but in the modern media saturated world, the hate seems to come a lot easier to us. Being who I am, movies tend to come up in conversation a lot, and whenever Miss Knightley is touched upon, the hate begins to flow.

"The way her chin juts out, it enrages me," is a pretty typical comment. I've never known a facial feature to inspire such vitriol.

I got to thinking about this while watching A Dangerous Method last week. The film isn't without merit, but overall I found it disappointing. And Knightley's performance isn't going to win over any of her haters.

When we are introduced to her character, she is deep in the throes of mania.

And Knightley chooses to portray this mania by jutting her chin out even further and making strange noises. The actress had never really bothered me before, but I was starting to understand everybody's problem with her chin.

Another large-chinned subject of widespread hatred is Ben Affleck. In the late '90s and early '00s, it seemed like the whole world wanted to punch him. It's true he made a string of terrible movies and played out his relationship with Jennifer Lopez in the glare of the spotlight, but I always found myself wanting to stick up for Affleck.

His 2000 flop Reindeer Games is often cited as one of his worst films, but I think it's great and unfairly dismissed. Affleck brings an appealing beleaguered quality to the impressively nasty film.

After Affleck's reign, it seemed like Colin Farrell was going to become the world's new focal point for actor hatred, but the movement never really took off beyond nobody going to see any of his movies.

I've been trying to think of which actors I really hate these days, and I've only come up with one name: Harrison Ford.

Don't get me wrong, I love Han Solo; Indiana Jones; Jack Ryan and even Presumed Innocent's Rusty Sabich. But ever since the mid '90s or so, Harrison Ford has come across as a grumpy old bastard who forgot how to choose good movies to be in.

In every performance, it is Harry's frown that has the largest role to play, and this is in no way offset by his disgruntled interview demeanor.

Also Daniel Craig, he just seems like a jerk.

Do you hate Keira Knightley and her chin? Which actors do you feel an irrational hatred for? Do you think Harrison Ford needs to chill out?

Film critic Dominic Corry celebrates, clarifies and justifies his love for all things movie.

A film critic for more than ten years, Dominic's cinematic opinions can also be heard on radio and seen on TV. His favourite movies are The Lady Vanishes (1938), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Vertigo (1958), The Parallax View (1972), The Long Goodbye (1973), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Aliens (1986), Robocop (1987), Talk Radio (1988), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Midnight Run (1989), Metropolitan (1990), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Dazed and Confused (1995), The Game (1997), The Last Days of Disco (1998), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Primer (2002), The Orphanage (2007), District 9 (2009), Interstellar (2014) and It Follows (2015). He also reviews snack food.